The velvet gown worn by Princess Diana when she danced with John Travolta at the White House in 1985. / Leon Neal AFP/Getty Images

by Maria Puente, USA TODAY

by Maria Puente, USA TODAY

Princess Diana died nearly 16 years ago but the fervent interest in her and the things she owned lives on, making some people very rich. Even today, a closet of her evening gowns can be worth a million bucks.

So it was in London today when a collection of some of her memorable evening gowns, including the one she wore to a 1985 White House state dinner where she danced with John Travolta, fetched about $1.2 million at auction, the Associated Press reported.

The Travolta dress, a navy-blue, figure-hugging velvet gown by Victor Edelstein, sold for about $384,000, according to Kerry Taylor Auctions, just below its high estimate.

Diana wore the dress when she and then-husband Prince Charles were on their first joint state visit to the USA, invited by President Reagan to a gala dinner at the White House. The pictures of her taking to the dance floor with Travolta are among the most famous images of her.

The auction house said the gown was bought by "a British gentleman as a surprise to cheer up his wife." The other nine dresses were sold to unidentified bidders from around the world, including museums, the auction house said.

Two dresses by Catherine Walker, one of Diana's favorite designers, went for about $173,000 each, including a black velvet and beaded gown worn for a Mario Testino Vanity Fair photo shoot at Kensington Palace in 1997.

The dresses were consigned for sale by Florida-based socialite Maureen Rorech Dunkel, who bought them when Diana auctioned dozens of her dresses (at the suggestion of her young son, Prince William) at a New York charity auction in 1997, about three months before her death in a Paris car crash.

Dunkel bought a dozen dresses then as a long-term investment, then put them on exhibit for charity after Diana died. She put them up for auction in Canada in 2011, but the prices were set too high and many dresses didn't sell, the auction house says.

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